Sandee Byrd (center) uses play and mimicry to promote laughter in her yoga class. (Photo by Haley Bartel)
Yoga is more than just a good stretch — it is an ancient practice that holds the ability to significantly improve one’s life. Researchers from various institutions have found practicing yoga can reduce stress and anxiety and improve sleep and mental health.
“You’re doing something to elevate the body,” says Sandra Byrd, a life and spiritual coach in Richmond. “Your yoga practice is meant just for you.”
Byrd's practice comes with a funny twist: Once a week, she leads laughter yoga, a practice that prompts emotional release through controlled, intentional breathing. Byrd has taught the class at Living Water Community Center for a year. Students include workplace colleagues, military veterans and senior citizens.
“Laughter yoga is very freeing. It’s very nonjudgmental; you just get to be weird and silly,” says Serenity Rowland, who joined Byrd’s class with her sister, Faith, on a whim. They’ve since become regulars.
At first, the pair were unsure of what to expect. “We were kind of like, ‘Are we just gonna be doing regular yoga while someone’s up there doing stand-up comedy?’ And then we were like, ‘What if they’re not funny?’” Faith says.
Byrd starts classes with what she calls a gratitude breath. “I do an eight-count inhale, hold for four and exhale through the mouth with a sigh,” she says. Byrd has a breathwork certification, which she uses to inform and guide her classes.
From there, the class moves to active stretches including rolling the shoulders, tensing up and letting go, and shaking out the legs. Once the stretching is done, the laughter begins.
Byrd leads students through a guided session that prompts them to laugh in myriad ways, from Santa Claus chuckles to high-pitched giggling, repetitively and consistently. "You just let yourself go; it’s a space that is safe, and it has been so helpful with my anxiety,” Serenity says.
Instead of preplanning each movement, Byrd lets her students’ emotions guide the class. Sometimes, that looks like aggressive, firm, repetitive laughter. Other times, everyone appears to be throwing temper tantrums on the floor.
“If it goes in a certain direction, she’ll just go with it,” Faith says. “One night, it turned into scream yoga, and we were just screaming and screaming until that turned into more laughter.”
Class ends with a grounding meditation session where students sit still in silence.
“She leads us in gratitude meditation, and we always give ourselves hugs when we start it, and I’ve been doing that every morning now,” Serenity says. “It’s really comforting.”
Byrd promotes this reclamation of joy and self-love outside of laughter yoga, too. “We have gotten to a point where we don’t see the value in joy,” she says. While she understands that laughter yoga is not going to appeal to all, the rewards are great enough to encourage others to give it a try. “I want everyone to encompass laughter yoga in their life,” she says.
Giggle for Your Own Good
Laughter yoga combines breathwork, meditation and intuitive movement from yoga with laughter therapy. The science of laughter therapy is rooted in brain chemistry. Researchers from Harvard Medical School have found that the brain benefits from both genuine and simulated laughter, and laughter therapy can mitigate stress hormones including cortisol.
Byrd offers her class at 7:30 p.m. on Thursdays. The class is $10, and signups are available through meetup.com.
